


Fire/Fight

by skitzofreak



Series: Calamity's Child [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Favorite Scene, Gen, Jedha, Jyn Appreciation, Jyn kicks ass, Rated For Violence, and Cassian appreciates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 16:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14719985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: It’s a dance now, a rhythm, dart forward, grab the outstretched white-clad arm and hold it outstretched, swing truncheon upward, the elbow splinters, the voicebox screeches, Jyn whirls away. Death takes the slow, Saw bellows in her head, so she drops into a crouch as one ‘trooper fires over her head into another’s chest, and she launches herself from the earth and for a moment- weightless, flying, falling, burning, war is destruction andso am I–---Written for the Jyn Appreciation Squad on Tumblr, Jyn Week, Day 1





	Fire/Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Jyn Week Day 1 Prompt: Favorite Scene + Burn

**_Fire/Fight_ **

It’s a nightmare – trapped in a dirty alley, the cold dust of some foreign moon choking the air in her lungs as the roar of exploding heavy artillery fire drowns out everything but the sound of her gasping breath. Across from her and a few steps north, Cassian crouches against the crumbling stone building, ducking as a nearby explosion kicks up more dust and sends shrapnel flying around them. The fucking stormtroopers are tearing this city apart, and the Partisans aren’t too far behind them for sheer destruction (it wasn’t like this, when she was with Saw; it got dirty and raw a few times but they never opened fire in the middle of a crowded fucking  _market,_  and something in Jyn can’t quite reconcile these ragged, senseless killers with the soldiers she once was proud to fight alongside).

(She guesses that war has destroyed Saw’s restraint, as it destroys so many things.)

Some of the smoke clears, and Jyn can just make out Cassian’s face again. His eyes are wide, his hair full of dust and bits of Jedha’s artillery-blasted walls, but his jaw is set in grim determination and his hands steady on his rifle. She sees him glance at her, then down the alley both ways. White armor coming around the corner to the north, and quick as a thought he swings his rifle around and shoots, one, two, three shots, and three bodies fall in less time than it takes her to count them. He doesn’t linger out of cover to check his kills, swinging back into the relative shelter of the wall and reloading his rifle with the swift, confident movements of a professional. He glances up only once to mark her position, his eyes dark, focused, ready.

Her heart starts to pound now, no longer the steady elevation of running and dodging but  _real_ pounding, a breathless race in her chest that sends her skin sparking, her muscles crackling with pent up energy, her blood burning under her skin. Her heart thuds against her ribs like it’s trying to explode, pumping blood molten with fear and rage and  _need_. This is what she knows. This is what she understands. The war has come to destroy Jedha, to destroy them all, but Jyn is a child of war. However many things he has destroyed, Saw created at least one thing, one creature of fire and blood, and someday perhaps she will thank him for it. 

More white coming from the north, and Cassian swings out again, his rifle spitting green fire, precise, methodical, dead-eye shots every time. Jyn’s hands itch around her own blaster (Cassian’s, technically, but in battle anything in her hand is indisputably  _hers_ , and if someone wants to take it from her, she’s fucking ready to let them  _try)._  She can’t leap out into the alley, though, not with ‘trooper fire from the north and Cassian firing back, she’ll only –

\- more white in the corner of her eye, and several realizations flicker through Jyn’s mind all at once.

Multiple ‘troopers flanking from the south.

Cassian is still focused north.

Her blaster has a six shot limit before it needs a cooldown period.

They will shoot him in the back if she does not act.

Jyn locks her blaster in her holster and draws her truncheon. With a swift, confident twist of her wrist, she snaps it open.

Cassian is still firing north, three more shots. Three more ‘troopers drop.

Her blood is burning in her veins.

White armor marches into her view, parallel with her sheltered alley.

Jyn erupts.

Her truncheon cracks across the black eyeplates in the skull-like helmet, shattering them both. Jyn whips it back, controlling the momentum of the swing, and feels her whole arm jolt as the truncheon smashes into the ‘troopers’ lower back, and then another hard twist on her muscles, second backswing, and this blow hits the skull-mask directly on the chin. The ‘trooper jerks wildly under the onslaught, a toy thrown into the fire and dancing as it burns, and then he drops at her feet. Jyn doesn’t stand still to watch him fall, she’s already twisting away from the collapsing pile of broken bones and cracked armor because another ‘trooper is trying to ambush her from behind but Jyn stabs backward with the truncheon, the hard metal point smashing through the left eyeplate and jamming into something soft. The mechanical voicebox makes a horrible distorted screeching noise, a mangled parody of a Human scream.

She jerks the truncheon out, and it’s a dance now, a rhythm, dart forward, grab the outstretched white-clad arm and hold it outstretched, swing truncheon upward, the elbow splinters, the voicebox screeches, Jyn whirls away.  _Death takes the slow_ , Saw bellows in her head, so she drops into a crouch as one ‘trooper fires over her head into another’s chest, and she launches herself from the earth and for a moment

\- weightless, flying, falling, burning, war is destruction and  ** _so am I_  –**

and she hits the ‘trooper like an artillery shell, like a falling star, the full momentum of her leap translated into her arm to her hand and finally to her truncheon, which catches the light of the blaster fire around her until it seems to glow with it as she smashes it into the white skull-helmet.

The ‘trooper drops, graceless and heavy, a puppet with all his wires cut, but Jyn is fast, fast as a comet, fast as Death, and she snatches the rifle from the ‘trooper’s lifeless fingers before it falls, and she’s dancing again, spinning on her heel and she is so  _aware_  of everything - the red Jedha dust swirls in her wake, thin rivers of dark red blood trickle from bone white helmets and run unerringly towards her boots but they can’t catch her, she’s faster than blood, faster than Death, her body burns and her heart pounds, beating out the rhythm of the dance, she’s alive, she’s alive,  _she’s alive!_

Two more ‘troopers, but Jyn has the rifle and the rhythm, fire, fire, and both drop. She spins again, dust flying up around her, or perhaps it is sparks, the city is burning, Jyn is burning. One of them is still moving, struggling back to shaky feet and reaching for a utility belt but Jyn is faster and she is already spinning. Her truncheon shudders in her hand as it strikes across the ‘trooper’s neck and he falls and she spins on.

Another ‘trooper, black, tall,  _droid_ , but bone white Imperial sigil on black metal and that’s enough, Jyn fires again, primary processor on a KX model is in the upper right, a Human heart flipped backward to confuse her but she knows these steps well and she burns out the heart of the KX droid as ruthless as  –

\- KX droid? KX droid!

_Shit!_

Her heart thuds heavily in her chest, off rhythm, out of step, and she stumbles as the hulking figure of the dead KX teeters and crashes to the ground in a clatter of cold metal.

Another one walks out of the alley behind it, pauses, and Jyn’s rifle swings to face this new threat but she’s unbalanced now, uncertain. She waits, breath catching, and notices that her fingers are suddenly cold.

“Did you know that wasn’t me?” The KX demands in a familiar, non-Imperial-standard voice, and Jyn’s vision suddenly widens, as if blinders have been pulled from her eyes, as if the world suddenly exists again. K2SO. Alive. Cassian stands to the left, rifle silent. Alive.

She’s alive.

Cassian has his rifle slung in his arms, a pile of bone-white armor behind him. Not a single shot flew towards her from the north, she realizes a beat late. She felt no threat from that direction at all while she danced. His jaw is set tightly and his hands are steady as he holds the weapon at a safe angle away from her, but his eyes are still a little too wide, and for some reason the wreck of his hair is disarming. The fire under Jyn’s skin has banked a little, dampened by her sudden fear of killing the wrong droid, but something in Cassian’s shuttered expression sends sparks dancing up her spine again. Jyn swallows, presses her lips together tightly, and shakes her head at K2SO.

“’Course,” she mutters, and turns away from them both. Jyn tucks her truncheon away and drops the Imperial-issued rifle as she takes in the aftermath. Seven ‘troopers lie still at her feet. Eight or nine more are piled up at the north end of the alley.

Not bad for a thirty-second skirmish.

But Jedha is still burning. 

Time to go.


End file.
